Iraq, the unravelling (Part LXVII)
Iraq, the unravelling (Part LXVII)
by Tom Ricks
The Best Defense
I admit it: When I was writing The Gamble I thought for awhile that such a residual force was the way to go. But with the passage of the years since then I increasingly have come to believe that Iraqis were simply sitting around keeping their powder dry and waiting for Uncle Sam to get out of the way, so they could sort themselves out. Remember, the surge was half a war ago-it began four years ago, in January 2007. Iraq was given a lot of time. I do not see what keeping 15,000 troops there for another year or two would do that it did not do in 2009 or 2010. Plus, President Obama was not elected to keep us in Iraq, he was elected, in part, to get us out. So it would be pretty hard to keep troops there without a clear indication that it would do any good. Especially since Iraqis seemed to want us out.
Tom—if you have read the article here on SWJ on rural vs urban insurgency—to those of on the ground in 2005/2206 WE all knew if one was inherently “seeing” and “understanding” that both the Sunni and Shia insurgencies had simply “parked” themselves and were waiting for us to leave.
Why was there here in circles in the US the belief that the ethnic cleansing and civil war had stopped should be the core question.
Where was the investigative reporting around this in the last few years?
The media owes this to those that were killed and wounded.
Ricks doesn’t have to admit it — he made a strong point of it at the time and stuck by his position when many differed with him. So this is his weak, wordy, too-late attempt at a mea culpa.